Do your customers use a different DTP application than you do?
How do you exchange documents?
And what about the colors on the printouts?
With PDF HandShake there are no application incompatibilities anymore. Here is an example of how you can get high-quality printouts of a document that was originally created with Microsoft Word and then transformed into PDF. The example production environment is illustrated in Fig. 15.1.
The corresponding workflow is described below:
Company A (customer):
Create a complete document using Microsoft Word. Import graphics, e.g. Illustrator EPSF graphics and images or Photoshop PICT images, if desired.
Set up your printer driver as shown in Fig. 15.2 and print your document into a PostScript file.
Convert the PostScript file into PDF. (Check 16 “Create PDF files using Acrobat Distiller” for advice on the best-suited Distiller options.) Embed all fonts your printers do not have.
Send the PDF file to your printers.
Company B (printers):
Start the “pdfprint” program on your server or install our
Acrobat plug-in on a Mac client and open the PDF HandShake Print...
dialog in your Acrobat application (Fig. 15.3).
Set up all required parameters and print the PDF document you have received. Note that for best color matching results, it might be helpful to get ICC profiles from Company A. For example, if the document contains several Illustrator illustrations, the RGB profile of the designer’s monitor would guarantee the best results. However, it is also possible to use the standard profiles we deliver with PDF HandShake.
Of course, the application on the input side is exchangeable. Microsoft Word is only one option.
In the case that both of your companies are using either EtherShare, PCShare or WebShare and have PDF HandShake installed, you can both make use of the more than one hundred fonts we deliver.
Your printers will then have the same fonts available on the server. So you do not have to include them in your PostScript job, and you do not have to embed them when distilling the file. The exchanged files will become smaller.